Under Nara Shikaku's orders, every Konoha ninja left aboard the ships charged into the cabins, resolved to perish alongside the enemy. An air of bleak, desperate determination instantly spread through the fleet.
Yet although he had given that order, he knew perfectly well how much use Explosive Tags would really be against the Hozuki Clan, who possessed the Hydrification Secret Technique.
If any of them failed to react in time and got caught in the blast before they could liquefy, they might still be injured.
As for using the flames from the Explosive Tags to evaporate all the water they had turned into, Nara Shikaku held no such wishful hope.
They were on the open sea, after all!
On land, a chain of explosions might actually have vaporized the Hozuki ninjas' liquefied bodies outright.
But out on this vast ocean, replenishing the water they lost could not have been easier for them!
If one asked whether Nara Shikaku regretted it now, then of course he did.
It was not that he had never considered the possibility of a Hozuki Clan attack. He simply never imagined that only the Hozuki Clan would come!
Were they insane?
The Hozuki Clan might have been Kirigakure's greatest noble clan, but how many elite ninjas could a single clan possibly gather?
At most, a hundred or so!
And with so few people, they dared attack a fleet of five thousand? Who the hell had given them the courage?
If he had not tried to outsmart them with a scheme upon a scheme, and had instead honestly gathered all five thousand men together to prepare for an attack, they might have lost another ten ships—but he guaranteed that more than half of these attacking Hozuki ninjas would have been left behind!
Unfortunately, reality had no ifs.